Since the invention of the telephone, voice communication has evolved to become an integral part of people's business, social and personal lives. Voice communications provides immediacy in being able to link two parties almost instantaneously and reliability in knowing that called party is receiving and understanding the message. As effective and productive as the telephone has become, it has also exposed an avenue for those that are commercially inclined to exploit its ubiquitous nature. Telemarketers and other marketing/advertising entities use the telephone and voice communications to peddle any and all products to unsuspecting individuals. Further, users like to screen calls to not be bothered by wrong numbers. Such problems have given rise to what is known as caller identification (caller ID).
Caller ID shows called parties the identity and any attributes associated with the identity of those that are calling (hereinafter referred to as “calling parties”). Current caller ID technologies include mobile telephone applications where called parties may designate a particular identifier for a particular phone number. Mobile phone and caller ID technologies have advanced such that identifiers may now include ring tones and images. For example, individual A with telephone number 123-345-6789 calls individual B. Before B picks up the phone, the name, ring tone or image that B has associated with the phone number 123-345-6789 is displayed on B's caller ID screen. Thus, B may choose to either answer or ignore the call. The unfortunate compromise involved in such a technology is that the calling party is denied the freedom to specify his or her own identifier. Therefore, party A would have no control over what image or name or ring tone is associated with his identity when calling another person.
In another field, instant messaging systems show an identifying image when conversing with another party. Here, a messaging party may choose his or her own identifier. For example, in an instant messaging system, party A sets his identifying image as a gavel and transmits an instant message to party B. B receives the message from A and, after a delay caused by the image transmission process, eventually receives the gavel image identifying A. After receiving the identifying image, the messaged party B will retain and associate that image with party A, eliminating the need to transfer the image every time the messaging party A initiates a conversation. However, each time a messaging party A decides to change the image, the delay will repeat as the new image needs to be transmitted and saved in the messaged party's (B's) database. Further, a message needs to be transmitted prior to any updates of a messaging party's image. Therefore, while the instant messaging identification method provides a solution for self-identification, it has not achieved the immediate nature of identification evident in telephone caller ID systems.
A technology that can combine the benefits of self-identification with the immediacy of caller identification results is needed that improves the capabilities of telephones (or telephone systems) and messengers while preserving the freedom of self-identification.